


iunctaque semper erunt nomina nostra tuis

by sleeptodream



Series: adam and ronan navigate life [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bondage, Dom/sub, Edging, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeptodream/pseuds/sleeptodream
Summary: “It looks like nothing Adam’s ever experienced before, like a home.”(An unexpected encounter in the lead up to Christmas has Adam reflecting on what home means to him. Smut and feelings ensue.)
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: adam and ronan navigate life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994338
Comments: 27
Kudos: 244





	iunctaque semper erunt nomina nostra tuis

Adam pulls up outside the Barns, cuts the engine and slumps back against his seat. He needs a minute to settle himself. He needs a minute to relax.

Outside, snow continues falling in thick, fast flurries. The sun’s on its way down and it glares against the window, brighter now than it ever was in the heat of summer. Adam shuts his eyes to guard against it. His mind is racing, various thoughts battling to take precedence. He tries picturing branches curling around his body, leaves brushing against his face, his fearsome forest enveloping him completely — but there is no Cabeswater anymore. There’s just Adam, and he wishes that were a comfort.

When he looks back up, the windshield’s covered in a layer of white. He runs his hand over his face before lifting his grocery bag from the passenger seat and climbing out the car.

The Barns is bright and warm and smells like Christmas. That part’s all Ronan’s doing — he’s spent the better part of the afternoon baking gingerbread loaf. It’s his mom’s old recipe. Declan and Matthew are set to arrive tomorrow night for midnight mass and stay through to the 26th, and Ronan wanted to contribute something “since that fucker doesn’t trust me to make the dinner.”

Adam had been ‘helping,’ until he’d dropped most of the egg shell into the mixing bowl along with the yolk and made a mess trying to scoop it back out. Ronan had rolled his eyes and called Adam a goddamn kitchen nightmare, then sent him off to the store with instructions to pick up orange juice for the icing and some other last-minute holiday essentials.

He’s probably forgotten something, after seeing her. Is what it is.

“Here.” Adam sets the grocery bag down on the one section of counter that’s not covered in flour.

Ronan doesn’t look up from his task of washing dishes as he says, “Jesus fuck, Parrish. Did you squeeze those oranges yourself?”

“They didn’t have cranberry sauce at Food City. I had to drive into town.”

“That’s thirty minutes there and back.”

“Forty-five when you don’t drive like you’re on the run.”

“Lame,” Ronan hollers.

“Practical,” Adam insists. “Or did you want to wait on me mailing you your shit from the county jail?”

When Ronan turns around, there’s an easy smile on his face, the kind that’s gotten gradually more common over the last year. He closes the distance between them and sweeps Adam into a hug. It would be heartwarming, if his hands weren’t covered in soap suds that he’s deliberately wiping off on the back of Adam’s shirt.

“You’re such an asshole,” Adam says, but he doesn’t move away. He relaxes into the warmth of Ronan’s arms where nothing else matters, where he’s safe and happy and okay.

Then he notices the time on the kitchen clock. It’s later than he thought it was. A good deal later than it was when he pulled up outside. When did all that time pass? How long had he sat out there in the car?

“Parrish?” Ronan runs his hand down Adam’s back, feeling at the muscles Adam hadn’t realized were tense. The words he’s not saying hang between them: _where’d you go?_

Adam takes a breath and forces himself to focus on what’s important — what’s right in front of him. He tells himself nothing else matters. He’s with Ronan.

He leans in and presses his lips to the side of Ronan’s neck, leaving a path of hot, slow kisses down to Ronan’s collarbone. _I’m here._

It’s grounding; Ronan’s presence always is, whether he’s holding Adam or kissing Adam or tugging Adam back to his body when his wandering mind scries too far. He’s the cord around Adam’s wrists tethering him to the here and now, and some days Adam wants nothing more than to drop everything and be led.

He could use that right now, but the kitchen’s a mess and Ronan’s brothers will be here in a day and they still have work to do. It can wait.

Ronan, as if reading Adam’s mind, groans and says, “I’ve still got icing to make,” but his grip around Adam’s waist tightens.

“Then do it.” He sucks at Ronan’s skin until he’s sure he’s left a mark. “By all means.” He runs a hand down Ronan’s chest, thumbs at the button on Ronan’s jeans. “I’m not stopping you.” Then he pulls away and breaks free from Ronan’s hold.

“Hey,” Ronan says with a note on incredulity in his voice. “Get back here.”

“You’ve still got icing to make.”

“It can wait.”

“Are you kidding? The kitchen’s a mess,” Adam says. “We’re not walking away and leaving it like this.”

“Parrish—”

“You finish down here, I’ll wrap the presents. Deal?”

Ronan snarls, “You’re a fucking tease,” but the severity of it is lessened by the awed look in his eyes. Part of the fun of messing with Ronan is in relishing the way Ronan stares at him in return, as if he’s impressed with (and better still, _grateful for)_ Adam’s ability to be as much of an annoying shithead as him.

Adam loves it. He loves that he’s the cause of it. He’d do just about anything Ronan says, when he’s looking at Adam like that.

“Call it motivation,” Adam says, and then he walks away before Ronan _does_ say something, because he really doesn’t want to get coaxed into letting Ronan fuck him against the filthy countertop.

Once upstairs, Adam pulls the bag with Declan and Matthew’s Christmas presents out the cupboard and gets to work. He wraps up each gift (and the obscenely ugly Christmas sweaters that Ronan, with Blue’s encouragement, knitted himself) carefully and methodically, and signs his and Ronan’s names on the labels in his neatest handwriting. He ties golden bows around Matthew’s and red bows around Declan’s, taking great care to smooth them out. Then he returns the presents to the bag and sets it down at the side of the bedroom, to be carried downstairs and sat beneath the tree later on.

He looks around for other tasks to be done, but the place is tidier than it’s ever been. They spent all day yesterday making sure of it, the two of them mopping the floors and dusting the shelves and stripping the beds in every room (and then fooling around on the freshly laundered sheets and having to wash them all over again).

They hadn’t bothered much with the holidays last year, in the wake of the failed Glendower search, with the Lynch brothers’ grief for Aurora still hanging over them. This year though, Adam wanted things to be different. He listened to his college friends share their grand plans for the season, and then he came back to the Barns last week with fresh resolve.

So now there’s tinsel wrapped around the stair banisters and ornaments on the windowsills in every room, Santas and reindeer and snow globes both old and new. There’s mistletoe hanging above the doors and gaudy Christmas sweaters in the wardrobe. There’s the tree that Ronan already decorated, with candy canes and multi-coloured baubles and a glittering dream angel on top. It looks like nothing Adam’s ever experienced before, like a home.

 _Home_.

He thinks about his mother. About the measly essentials he’d seen in her basket earlier.

What would she have said, if he’d tried talking her?

Standing still won’t do. Adam runs himself a shower instead. He cleans himself off beneath the spray, concentrating on nothing but the feel of the water burning his skin, the steam covering up the tiles…

He can still picture her face. The way she’d looked at him from the other end of the aisle — or rather, looked right through him, like she hadn’t noticed him at all.

It doesn’t matter, _shouldn’t_ matter, but the memory tugs at him like an itch he can’t scratch. He wants to take it apart and analyze from all angles. What should he have said? What else could he have done? Did she recognize the BMW and come inside hoping to see him? Is she thinking about him now? Does she think about him at all?

It’s stupid of him. Irrational. Seeing her shouldn’t bother him. He said goodbye to them both months before, shadowed in the doorway in his best clothes with his boyfriend’s beemer parked outside. They’re not supposed to hold power over him anymore. He’s supposed to be better at—

Adam’s skin burns. He looks down and realizes he’s been scrubbing at his arm so hard the skin’s burned raw.

He could scry, perhaps. Just for a little while, while Ronan’s still busy. It’s always a danger, doing it without anyone to spot him, but he’s had plenty of practice. He knows his limits. And it always helps to escape himself when he’s feeling like this, thoughts whirring, mind caught up in memories he’d rather not relive. Feels good to let Adam Parrish go, to lose himself to something greater…

Adam shakes the thought off, disgusted with himself. He climbs out of the shower and towels himself off.

When he comes back into the bedroom, Ronan’s already there and rummaging through the bag with the wrapped presents. Adam seals his worries away in a box marked _For Later_ and steps forward.

“Fuck,” Ronan says, holding up one of the perfectly wrapped and bow-tied gifts. “This looks like some professional shit you pay for at the mall. What’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry I couldn’t half-ass a job just for you to take another potshot at your brother. How selfish of me.”

“It is selfish. Now Declan’s gonna think we value him as a person.”

Adam rolls his eyes and says, “Just don’t rip the paper. I’m not replacing it.”

“I’m not gonna rip it. I’m not a wild animal.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You’ve been eating like one all week.”

“And you mauled my throat like one. Let’s not throw stones.”

Adam looks Ronan over, grinning at his handiwork. Ronan mock scowls and adds, “Laugh all you want. You’re not the one that needs to go to midnight mass looking like this.”

“The shirt’ll cover it.”

“Irrelevant. God sees everything.”

“Okay, you know I have no problem with the Catholic thing,” Adam says, “but God being a voyeur in our bedroom is where I draw the line.”

“Wasn’t the bedroom,” Ronan says, and Adam’s smile grows fond. He doesn’t need to go anywhere, when Ronan’s here. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

He finds a clean pair of boxers in his drawer and removes the towel from his waist, running it quickly through his hair. He’s about to pull the new pair on when Ronan snatches them away and settles his hands settle on Adam’s hips. “Don’t think we’ll be needing those.”

His breath is hot against Adam’s neck. His arms around Adam are heavy and familiar, as reassuring a presence as the forest he pulled from his dreams. He still smells like gingerbread. Like Christmastime. _Like home_ , Adam’s mind supplies, and then he leans back and lets his head rest against Ronan’s shoulder.

Ronan traces circles against Adam’s hips, making no move to take things further. Adam shuts his eyes and just enjoys it, the comfort, the warmth, the _security_ of being enveloped in somebody else so completely.

He didn’t think he’d ever want that, before Ronan. Safety, the way Adam understood it, lay in self-sufficiency, in having both the financial stability and mental fortitude to guard yourself from the whims of other people. Humans were fickle, selfish creatures; you couldn’t trust them to have your best interests at heart.

But the rules don’t apply with Ronan. He exists to defy expectations. He is wild and wonderful and Adam trusts him more than Adam trusts himself, and it scares him just how willingly he would drop his defenses to wrap himself up in Ronan instead.

It’s not rational or sane to behave this way, but maybe love never is. Adam’s still learning how this works.

He sighs as Ronan’s touch sends sparks shooting through him.

“What do you want?” Ronan asks, his breath a whisper at Adam’s good ear.

Adam considers it, but his list of wants is infinite. He wants peace and warmth and safety. He wants to shut his mind off and not have to think. He wants to rest his weight against Ronan with the assurance that neither of them will sink.

On the window, the Christmas robin begins to glow. Dream decorations — Ronan designed them to turn on the minute it starts getting dark outside. Adam’s eyes linger on the flashing lights, and _For Later_ becomes _Now_ as he thinks about homes both old and new, and traditions, and holidays spent hunched over in the dark.

He says, “I saw my mom today.”

Ronan’s hands still.

“She was at the grocery store,” he adds. “That’s why it took me so long.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“No.”

There’s a pause, and Adam knows Ronan’s holding himself back from saying the first undoubtedly disparaging thing that comes to mind.

Then, quieter, “Did you want her to?”

Adam sucks in a sharp breath. “I don’t know.”

What he wants is to never have run into her in the first place. If he’d left the cranberry sauce and just picked the groceries up in Singer’s Falls, if he’d broken the speed limit on the way to Henrietta, if he’d spent less time dallying around…

But it happened how it happened, and he can’t change anything now. Not the way he’d frozen like a deer in the headlights when he looked up and saw her reflection in the freezer door, not the way he’d stared after her blankly as she turned, head down, and flitted back up the aisle, not the way he’d paid for his groceries and loaded the car and driven home in a daze and then sat out there, mind whirring, lost.

He doesn’t miss her. Them. Any of it. He doesn’t miss being their son, counting down the days till Christmas with a sick sense of dread in his stomach, because Christmas meant no school, no work, nowhere to escape to while his father drank morning through to night. Christmas meant listening to his rich classmates discuss their plans to spend the holiday abroad at fancy ski resorts, meant listening to workmates joke fondly about the wife and kids driving them mad with all their demands, meant lonely winter nights in the gloom of his bedroom reflecting on all that separated him from everybody else. _Lonesome, lonesome_.

No, Adam doesn’t miss that. He has everything he wants right here.

“I’m being stupid,” he says. “It’s this time of year, is all. I keep thinking about whether the house feels weird without me, or if my mom bothered bringing out the decorations.” _Or if they miss me._ He scoffs. “We didn’t have much. We had one of those tabletop trees that plugged in, and this Santa sleigh that stuck to the window. My dad would complain when we turned it on — said we couldn’t afford the bills.”

Ronan doesn’t say anything, but the way his arms tighten around Adam is loud enough: _you’re not in that trailer anymore._

Adam thinks of Ronan’s dream lights that run on magic rather than energy. He thinks of the missing faces at the Lynch Christmas table and how badly they’re missed, how strongly their presence is still felt, and feels embarrassed to have brought his own roots into the house. He’s ashamed to have opened his mouth at all. He feels exceedingly vulnerable here, naked in more ways than one.

But he’s with _Ronan._ Ronan, who he trusts to hold him up always. Ronan, who never judges, at least not when it comes to the things that matter. Ronan, who beneath the gruff exterior is kind and loyal and so good to Adam; Adam wants to be good for him too, and that requires openness. That requires truth.

“I guess I’m glad she didn’t talk to me,” he says, only coming to that conclusion just now. “I don’t know what I would’ve said.”

“You don’t owe them shit,” Ronan says.

“I know that. That doesn’t make it easier.”

Ronan leans down and kisses Adam’s shoulder-blade, apology and understanding rolled into one.

“I wish I was better at this,” Adam says. He doesn’t explain what he means because he’s not sure if he can; the feeling is too big to put into words. It’s an overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction with himself — too damaged, too afraid, too stubborn to let the past go — that comes and goes like rain in the spring. It’s better left stamped down and sealed away.

But then Ronan says, “You’re doing pretty fucking great, all things considered,” and Adam accepts the praise without rebuttal. Adam relishes in the fact that he doesn’t have to explain himself, that he is already understood. Adam leans back against Ronan and basks in the heady sensation of being known.

“I mean it,” Ronan adds, as if Adam could ever doubt his faith. “Tamquam—”

“Alter idem.”

He can feel Ronan smiling against his shoulder and he thinks about just how lucky he is to have this, how untouchable this is. It doesn’t matter what he came from, even when it still creeps up on him. He has a place at the Lynch Christmas table now. He’ll always have a place, so long as they keep choosing each other.

And why wouldn’t they? No one will ever understand Adam the way Ronan does. He’ll never need them to.

“Did I kill the mood?” he asks, and Ronan snorts.

“You’re not wearing anything. I think we can get it back.”

Adam laughs. He lets Ronan turn him around and smooth the damp hair away from his eyes, and he lets Ronan kiss him, and he sinks into it completely, this safe space where he can drop his worries at the door.

They make it onto the bed, both of them laid out side by side, and Adam can hardly remember moving from point A to B but he doesn’t care. He’s got Ronan’s breath melding into his and Ronan’s hands running down his back and Ronan’s thigh inching between his legs, and he’s already overwhelmed.

Ronan pushes Adam onto his back and then crawls over him. He shucks his t-shirt off and tosses it aside, revealing lean muscle and broad shoulders and those first dark tendrils of tattoo that Adam loves. He’s grinning down at Adam, confident and powerful and obscenely hot, and Adam _aches_. He could buck his crotch up against the bulge in Ronan’s sweatpants, or scrape his hands down Ronan’s back and pull him down for another kiss, or use his weight to flip their positions. All of those are good options — but they’re not what Adam wants.

And Ronan must see it on his face, because his cocky grin shifts into something more thoughtful.

He brings his hand up to cup Adam’s neck, thumb settling against the hollow of Adam’s throat. Doesn’t push it, just rests it there, considering. Adam breathes out, letting his shoulders go slack against the pillow.

“Fuck.” Ronan draws the word out. “You need it, don’t you?”

Part of him wants to deny it, still embarrassed by this side of himself. The better part of him wants Ronan even more, though, so Adam looks him in the eye and says, “Yeah.”

Ronan gathers his hands up, laying kisses to the delicate wrist bones and each of the knuckles, before pinning them above Adam’s head. He traces the prominent veins at the wrist, following them all the way up the inside of Adam’s arm to the crease of the elbow. It’s a whisper of sensation, enough to nudge at the want inside Adam but nowhere near enough to feed it. He would think Ronan was teasing if he didn’t know better; this is Ronan at his most devout, a proud god marveling at the foot of his creation.

Adam shuts his eyes instinctively.

Ronan’s body hovers over him, close enough for Adam to feel his breath but not enough for their chests to touch. He tips Adam’s chin up and laves kisses to his neck. Licks a path down to the collarbone, deceptively gentle, before biting down.

Adam holds back a gasp, the pleasure-pain combo lighting up his nerve endings and going straight to his cock.

“None of that,” Ronan says. “Look at me.”

Adam looks at him. They’re face to face now, and Ronan’s eyes are heavy with lust and adoration.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” he says, and Adam melts against the sheets and thinks, _yes, please, that_ , “but you don’t get to come until I say you do. Got it?”

They talked about trying this once, while exploring boundaries and the things they would and wouldn’t be up for. This had been one of Ronan’s fantasies and Adam doesn’t really get it— he can’t understand what Ronan gets out of spending significant time onAdamwithout taking care of himself — but he’s eager to go along with it if it makes Ronan happy.

“Got it.”

“We can keep you like this or tie your hands up. Your call.”

He considers it. The restraints are still new — they’ve only used them twice before, haven’t had much opportunity with Adam at Harvard and Ronan at the Barns— but they both agreed the sex with them was good. Intense, but good.

“Tie them.”

“You sure?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Just checking,” Ronan says, but he’s got that teasing glint in his eyes and Adam knows this is payback for his stunt in the kitchen. “And if you want me to stop—”

“I’ll tell you. Goddamn, Lynch.”

Ronan grins wildly, and Adam can’t tell if it’s because of his accent sneaking through or just Adam in general, but his annoyance fades away.

Ronan climbs off the bed, much to Adam’s dislike. He reappears moments later with the velcro cuffs in hand. He clicks the first cuff into place, loops the chain around the bedpost and then attaches the second one. Adam gives them an experimental tug, testing how much give there is. His heart gives out an excited stutter when he draws up short with his arms slightly bent at the elbows. He can’t go anywhere now unless Ronan lets him. That shouldn’t be so alluring, but there’s something about the certainty of it, knowing he doesn’t have to think or stress or work to maintain his control. He can trust Ronan to do all that for him, to provide him a vacation from his own head.

It’s…weird. Shameful. At least a little bit fucked up. But if he shares this particular dysfunction with Ronan, well, it’s not so bad then, is it?

“Do they feel all right?”

Adam nods, and thankfully this time Ronan doesn’t keep prodding. He sweeps his eyes over Adam with that hooded gaze, and Adam shudders at the wave of arousal that goes through him. He can feel himself getting hard already. Whatever Ronan’s planning isn’t going to work, at this rate.

Ronan kisses his neck again, sucking gently at the spot where he’d bitten Adam before. He makes his way up, lingering at the pulse point, trailing along Adam’s jaw. His teeth graze at Adam’s skin and Adam lets out a slight gasp. Then his thumb traces over one of Adam’s nipples and Adam gasps again, louder. He tilts his head to the side and Ronan’s lips meet his, soft and brilliant and _not enough_.

“Not so fun, is it,” Ronan breathes out against his mouth, “when you’re the one that’s getting teased.”

Adam’s not going to beg. They’ve barely started; he’s got a lot more willpower than that. He lets the tension slip from his muscles and just goes with it, falling into the dreamy rhythm Ronan’s set.

His world narrows down to Ronan’s mouth moving against his, Ronan’s knees pinned on either side of his thighs, him and Ronan and every point where they’re touching. There aren’t enough but it’s okay. He’s taking what he’s been given, what he’s allowed.

A brush of tongue sweeping across his bottom lip. Thumb circling insistently around his nipple. Then a bite, hard and sudden, as Ronan’s thumb presses down on the hard nub.

Adam moans. The chains clink against the bedpost.

“ _Shit_ , just like that. You look so good right now.”

Ronan switches his attention to the other nipple and does the same again, circling around before pressing down hard. Adam goes to shut his eyes then remembers he’s not supposed to. He tips his gaze up to the ceiling instead as the pleasure courses through him, low thrum of heat in his gut.

Ronan leans back. His hands trail down Adam’s chest with intention this time, stopping short at the tops of Adam’s thighs. He shuffles further down the bed. Curls his fingers around Adam’s ankles and pulls at them until Adam’s legs are flat. And _fuck_ , Adam hates this. He loves this. He’s spread out and exposed and the weight of Ronan’s hungry eyes on him is doing funny things to his heart.

With his legs spread, Ronan crawls between them. He runs his hands up and down the inside of Adam’s thighs, never lingering where Adam wants him to. But Adam can’t push him. Adam waits him out, breaths heavy, arousal pooling at the base of his stomach.

“You’re doing so good for me. Gonna touch you now, okay?”

As if Adam’s going to say no. As if he’d ever want to say no.

But those words — _so good_ — light something up in him and he feels himself nodding anyway, eager to give Ronan whatever he asks for.

“Yeah,” and he can’t tell who Ronan’s talking to; there’s an edge to his voice, like he’s wrecked already, even though Adam can’t touch — “Fuck, Adam. Look at you.”

His hand closes around the base of Adam’s erection. Adam lets out a sound that he’d be embarrassed by under normal circumstances. He fights against the urge to buck up into Ronan’s hand as he jerks Adam off, slow but insistent. His palm is rough and calloused from all the work he’s been doing around the farm and it feels so good, better than good, amazing, even with all the friction.

Ronan’s thumb teases at the slit, collecting precum and then spreading it around the head. He starts stroking Adam again with his slick palm, and Adam groans and shuts his eyes. Ronan keeps going, still painfully slow, but Adam’s heart is beating harder than ever and the sensation keeps building and building, until he’s right there, on the edge—

Ronan lets go.

It takes a second for it to sink in that he’s not going to come, that that’s the whole point, and then he drops his head back against the pillow with a frustrated sigh.

“Hey, I got you,” Ronan says. Adam wants to be annoyed at him, but then his hand’s running through Adam’s hair, tracing patterns against his scalp, and Adam lets it go and leans into the touch. “That’s it, fuck, I knew you’d be good at this. You’re so good at everything. You’re a fucking gift.”

Adam thinks, _oh_ and _fuck_ and _yes, yes, yes_ in quick succession. Ronan’s voice goes straight to his head and makes the whole world feel fuzzy and unimportant. He could float right away in that sound.

Then Ronan’s hand grips around his cock again and the pleasure from before comes flooding back. Adam lets himself sink into it, lets it overwhelm him.

Ronan stops and starts and stops and starts and stops each time Adam gets close to orgasm. He gets Adam right on the edge and then he pulls back right as the sensations coalesce, and then he talks Adam down with more of his words — _good, so good, perfect_ — until Adam feels like he’s losing his mind completely. He’s never felt so rooted in himself, so _present_ before, like his body is made of live wires, like he’s giving off sparks at every touch.

He wants — no, _needs_ — to get off. He needs Ronan to never ever stop. He shudders as Ronan’s touch gets him right _there_ and then backs off and lets him wind down again. He jerks his hands against the bed post but the cuffs are a solid weight pinning him down. He’s Ronan’s to do with as he pleases. He’s _Ronan’s_.

Adam moans, louder and more insistent than before.

“Fuck,” Ronan groans, “I love when you get like this.”

 _I love you_ , Adam thinks. _I love you, I love you, please_ —

“Just a little longer, all right? Can you hold out a little longer for me?”

If Ronan’s asking, the answer’s yes.

Adam concentrates on getting his breathing under control as Ronan’s hands skim over his knees. He’s not paying attention, isn’t expecting it when Ronan hitches his legs up and gets between them. Hot breath skates over the inside of his thighs and Adam shudders at the first wet press of tongue.

“Ronan,” he tries to say, but the word’s muffled, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“Shh.” His mouth forming words this close to Adam’s dick is doing the opposite of calming him down. “Just trust me.”

Adam does trust him, so he lets go. Resists the urge to close his legs together as Ronan laves kisses along his thigh, wet and teasing, teeth scraping the delicate skin. He knows where this is going and all at once he’s _desperate_ for it, aching and hungry and made of want.

But he should know better than to assume he knows what Ronan’s planning. Right when he’s expecting Ronan’s mouth to close around his dick, Ronan dips his head lower and licks at Adam’s hole instead.

“ _Oh_.”

Any protests he might have given about the dirtiness of it fall out of his head, overridden by sharp desire, as Ronan strokes his tongue around and then inside. It wrenches a whine from Adam’s chest, pained and pleading. He hears the bedpost rattling and realizes belatedly it’s because of him, because he’s pushing up against Ronan’s face as much as the cuffs will allow it.

Ronan pulls back and pins his hips down. Says, voice rough, “You know, I don’t think you want it enough.”

Adam shakes his head. Doesn’t trust himself to speak.

“I think if you really wanted it, you’d beg for it.”

He thinks _no_ , thinks _I can’t do that_ but his body’s betraying him, bowing to Ronan’s every touch. His cock’s been hard so long it’s starting to hurt, but the pain feeds back into pleasure in a way that’s frighteningly intense and leaves his whole body feeling like one giant pulsating nerve of sensation.

Ronan teases the head of his cock, scrapes the inside of his thigh, and Adam gasps.

He wants it — needs — he’s almost —

“C’mon, Adam. Say it for me.”

Adam breaks and says, “ _Please_.”

Ronan replaces his tongue with the pad of his thumb and rubs against Adam’s hole. Wraps his other hand around Adam’s cock and strokes him, quick and rough, and says, “That’s it. Fuck, you’re brilliant, Adam. You can come now,” and Adam whines high in his throat and comes.

It’s like nothing he’s experienced before, orgasm felt all the way through his body from the tips of his fingers to the pads of his toes. His mind goes blank. He is blissfully empty, blissfully free.

Next thing he’s aware of is Ronan stroking his face, whispering praise that only contributes to the fuzziness in Adam’s head. His hands aren’t tied up anymore. Ronan’s clutching one of them, fingers delicately tracing the cuff marks. Adam’s other hand is beside him on the bed. He lifts it up to touch the skin above Ronan’s waistband, the first patch of skin Adam can find.

Ronan’s still hard in his sweatpants. That doesn’t seem right. Adam tries to voice his disapproval but the words won’t come out. Ronan must see it on his face, though, because he nods to himself, whatever that means, before finally pulling his pants off.

He hovers over Adam, knees on either side of Adam’s chest as he jerks himself off. Adam doesn’t have the energy or the words to talk Ronan through it like Ronan did with him, but he runs his hand up and down Ronan’s thigh and holds his gaze. Thinks, _I love you, I love you, please…_

“Fuck.” Ronan’s voice is wrecked. His eyes are shining with hunger and devotion. He cups Adam’s jaw with his free hand. “ _Fuck_ , look at you. I’m gonna—” Then he comes, stripping Adam’s chest in white.

Ronan shudders through the aftershocks before slouching down beside Adam on the bed. They’re both breathing heavily. The sky’s gotten pitch black in the time since they came up here, and it’s only thanks to the glow of the Christmas lights that Adam can see Ronan’s face at all. He feels Ronan curling into him like a missing puzzle piece, but he’s bone-tired, barely capable of lifting his head.

His mind still feels fuzzy. He likes it. Wants to settle down into it and let it envelope him.

“All right?” Ronan asks, and Adam nods wearily. Shuts his eyes.

***

When he wakes back up, it’s to the smell of gingerbread.

Adam sighs and blinks the sleep out of his eyes. It’s still pitch black outside, so at least he never slept all the way through to morning. He turns his head. Ronan’s sitting beside him propped up against the pillows. He’s got a plate with a slice of gingerbread loaf in one hand and a fork in the other.

“Thought the whole point of baking that was to show it off to Declan,” Adam says in a groggy, sleep-muffled voice.

“I was starving. It was there.”

“So was everything else in the fridge.”

“You wanna cook a three-course meal, be my guest. I think I’ve done enough work tonight.”

Adam rolls his eyes and then pushes himself up to a sitting position. His chest is clean. The thought of Ronan carefully wiping him down while he slept makes something warm and bright bloom in his chest.

He’s starving too, come to think of it. Ronan’s cake looks nice. Smells nice. Adam watches him cut into it with his fork and scoop the piece into his mouth. Watches him chew on it and go for another.

Ronan’s eyes catch his. He scowls. “Don’t fucking try it.”

“Try what?”

“You know what. You know exactly what you’re doing, you bastard.”

“I literally just woke up.”

Ronan stares at him with a challenging glint to his eyes. Adam stares right back, brow raised.

Ronan goes back to eating his cake and Adam tracks the movements until he sighs and finally says, “Fine, take it.” He shoves his plate with the other half of cake into Adam’s hands.

“You’re too good to me.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It tastes fantastic but that’s hardly a surprise. Ronan’s good at everything he makes an effort with. He’s kind and thoughtful and creative, and everything he makes he pours his heart into, whether it’s fantastical dreams or cooking experiments or ugly DIY Christmas sweaters.

Adam didn’t think it was possible to love him more than he already does, but staring at him now in the neon lights, Adam’s heart feels close to bursting.

 _How did I get here_ , he thinks, _and how do I make sure I never have to leave?_

“So what’s the verdict?”

“About what, the cake or the sex?”

“Surprise me, Parrish.”

Adam takes another bite. Chews it slowly as he considers what to say. Goes with, “I told you already. You’re too good to me,” and hopes the casualness of his voice hides the intensity behind the statement.

Ronan’s eyes meet his, and even in the dark Adam knows just how to read him. He knows the look on Ronan’s face is mirrored in his own, that vivid mix of love and wonder.

Adam finishes off the cake and and goes to dust off his hands, but Ronan grabs hold of him lightning quick and sucks the crumbs off Adam’s fingers instead.

“God, you’re disgusting.”

“You weren’t saying that when I had my tongue in your ass.”

Adam laughs helplessly. The gloom of the afternoon feels so far away now, like it happened to another Adam Parrish is another time. Right now, he doesn’t want to retreat from the world. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else. Right now, with Ronan beside him, being just Adam is enough.

He settles against Ronan’s side and trades kisses that taste of gingerbread and thinks how lucky he is, to finally have a home in the shape of another person.

**Author's Note:**

> I said I don't write smut and yet here I am, back with another 6k words of self-indulgent smut. Nobody look at me.
> 
> Title is taken from Ovid's Amores 1.3 and roughly translates to "my name will forever be linked to yours." Also, I KNOW it is way too early for Christmas themed fics. I'm judging myself here, too.


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